Monthly Archives: July 2011

Writer Virginia Woolf watched her own mind. She had plenty of time to do so as she was sent to bed by doctors who, in the 19th century, prescribed the reverse cure to depression that is more often ordered today: get up and out! be with friends! keep yourself occupied! Woolf, fortunately spent her depression bed rest time following the flight of her thoughts while she lay immobilized in her dark moods. The outcome of those times for her was a superior understanding of how the mind works, and a stream of consciousness modern form of writing for which she is credited in literary history. She also came to know a great deal of the mind – and self – from this experiential personal research of hers that was not looked at by science until much later. Woolf’s self as story.

As Woolf watched the chaotic shifting of her mind, she concluded that there was nothing fixed about her self. She linked “self” with “mind.”

“…now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now in a daffodil in the sun.” (Lehrer 169)

In the previous post I gave an example of listening to my unconscious – or what I might call my “key tracking mind app” in that particular case, if I am to draw upon Robert Kurzban’s multiple minds theory (Why Everyone [Else] is a Hypocrite).

Another interesting incident of unconscious watching occurred last December.

I arrived home one evening and pulled pork chops out of the freezer, defrosted them in the microwave, located a casserole dish, filled it with milk and sliced yellow onions, placed the pork chops on top, sprinkled all with black pepper, baked it, heated peas, opened a can of apple sauce, and sat down a bit later at my kitchen table to eat the meal of scalloped pork chops and green peas.

What was so unusual about this? For one thing, I am pretty much a vegetarian; I can’t remember the last time I cooked pork chops or even had them in my house. For another thing, I seldom make a complete meal when I am by myself, and especially not on a week night when I arrive home exhausted from my job at the college. I am more likely to eat a peanut butter sandwich, or a plateful of fruits and vegetables. And scalloped pork chops are an unusual meal for me.